Sticking gramophone or how to fail a website promotion project
Hello! Today, your precious attention is offered a slightly modified excerpt from the freshly printed book of our CEO Ivan Sevostyanov , Search Engine Optimization .
We apologize in advance for the sarcastic simplicity with which both the book and this small article are written. It may seem that we, as teenagers, are constantly picking our own acne. Maybe. But when, for the thousandth time, you hear an old soundtrack from a new client, you get the feeling of living in a jamming gramophone.
Customer site tech support is like sharing a loved one with someone else. One such technical support, in response to our recommendations, wrote 20 pages of its recommendations, meaning that our recommendations were incorrect. After a month and a half of the “war of the brides”, the technical support of the customer’s site recognized our rightness. But time was lost. The project began to die.
Moral: the kitchen should be only one woman.
')
How to deal with this: establishing contacts with the managers of the customer’s company, who are always able to “kick” technical support and explain that expensive professionals are not hired for beautiful eyes.
One of our clients was a very busy person. Contact him only once a month. As a result, there is a lack of information about the client’s business, and the failure of our client’s employees to comply with our recommendations. Nothing good came of it.
Moral: the customer and the performer must communicate often and in a language understandable to each other.
How to deal with it: to explain to the client at the conclusion of the contract that during the first two months he will have to actively communicate, or select the person who will replace him from his company. If there is no such person, you need constant access to the site and full carte blanche for optimization. Otherwise, it is better not to enter into a contract with the client at all.
The first part of Marlezonsky ballet.
One client expressed his dissatisfaction with the fact that, despite good traffic from search engines, there were practically no calls and requests from the site. An audit was conducted of its managers and an audit of processing applications from the site. As a result: managers handled calls extremely poor quality, applications through forms on sites were not processed by anyone. The client was recommended to train managers and to adjust the processing of applications from sites. Recommendations were ignored. The number of sales has not increased .
The second part of Marlezonsky ballet.
A month before the New Year, a client phoned the site dedicated to rest in the Moscow region asking him to advise him to rest in a cottage for a group of ten people. The manager accepting calls gave the client only two options for rest, and the client had to pull out all the additional information from the manager. The manager answered the questions extremely reluctantly and did not try to interest the client. As a result, the client did not buy anything.
Moral: it is not enough to bring the site to the top 10, it is necessary to restructure the structure of the customer’s company, sharpen it for accepting applications via the Internet. Even a site that is well represented in the search engines and visited by the target audience may not sell anything or sell little and rarely. There are many reasons for this, and one of the critical reasons is poor processing of requests from the site. If a manager is sitting “on the phone,” who is not able to clearly advise a person who has come from the site on a particular issue, then sales growth should not be expected. If requests by e-mail or via feedback forms are not processed or processed non-promptly, then there is no question of sales growth.
How to deal with this: conduct an audit of the client’s company on a “Mystery Shopping” system on a monthly basis, explain to the client on the day the contract is concluded how important such an audit is. Otherwise - think about the need to conclude a contract, no matter what monetary benefits he promised.
The client has placed the site on the servers of the local provider. Twice a week, the provider turned off the electricity for several hours and the site was unavailable. As a result: the unstable position of the site in search engines.
Moral: hosting is a critical link in the success of optimization projects, since the site's normal indexation by search engines depends on the availability of the site. If the site is “hanging” for at least several hours, then the search engines may remove it from their databases and, as a result, the result will be zero or unstable.
How to deal with it: obviously - to place the site on a normal hosting.
A client came with an online store of air conditioners. In this store, he had about a thousand items of air conditioners, split systems and similar equipment. But the client wanted only one request “air conditioners” and only the top 10. For all the arguments that he has at least a couple of hundreds of requests (and in fact it turned out to be a couple of thousands), it is optimal not to advance by the abstract request “air conditioners”, but by more specific requests like “LG air conditioners to buy” (which cheaper, and more guarantees, and higher sales!), the client stubbornly responded in the style of "this is all nonsense, I want air conditioning." For a month and a half, we had a dialogue with him and tried to convince him. They made up the semantic core of the site, showed the requests that are in general, and the fact that they are a couple of thousand. Did not heed!
Moral: the strategy of moving along with low-frequency inquiries is often more effective than entering the top-10.
How to deal with this: write a book "Search Engine Optimization", create a customer-oriented corporate blog.
The client removed from the site most pages that were promoted by priority requests. The project manager noticed the absence of pages in time, and after a few days they were all restored. As a result: loss of time and places for a number of requests (“Yandex” noticed the absence of pages earlier than the manager).
Moral: to achieve good results, all changes on the site must first be coordinated with the promotion specialists.
How to deal with this: to conduct regular monitoring of the site, in addition, make a list of pages that can not be changed and give it to the client. Generally, strongly ask for any change to consult a contractor.
However, any failure is not reduced to the standard set of client errors, it is always a system of errors. A professional is somehow different from a non-professional, who by the first signs understands what is going on and takes steps to correct the situation in advance.
In the failure of an SEO project, the contractor is always at fault . Many of our web colleagues probably will not agree with this thesis. Putting the blame on the client is easy. But it is not the “patient” who is to blame, but the “doctor” who failed to recognize the “disease” in time. The customer pays money not only for optimizing the site, but also for the SEO company to customize the workflow . At least, in most cases, the customer expects this, because he does not understand and is afraid of the specifics of the Internet business .
And because the task number one - do not run, headlong, to bring the customer site to the top. Task number one is to establish an effective interaction between the optimization firm and the client's firm. Probably, this is similar to the docking of two spacecraft. If you make a mistake at the very beginning, in the first 2-3 weeks of collaboration, then all this can turn into a catastrophe in the middle, when redocking is no longer possible.
We apologize in advance for the sarcastic simplicity with which both the book and this small article are written. It may seem that we, as teenagers, are constantly picking our own acne. Maybe. But when, for the thousandth time, you hear an old soundtrack from a new client, you get the feeling of living in a jamming gramophone.
Soundtrack first. “We know, too, you know”
Customer site tech support is like sharing a loved one with someone else. One such technical support, in response to our recommendations, wrote 20 pages of its recommendations, meaning that our recommendations were incorrect. After a month and a half of the “war of the brides”, the technical support of the customer’s site recognized our rightness. But time was lost. The project began to die.
Moral: the kitchen should be only one woman.
')
How to deal with this: establishing contacts with the managers of the customer’s company, who are always able to “kick” technical support and explain that expensive professionals are not hired for beautiful eyes.
The second soundtrack. "I'm busy, you disturb me"
One of our clients was a very busy person. Contact him only once a month. As a result, there is a lack of information about the client’s business, and the failure of our client’s employees to comply with our recommendations. Nothing good came of it.
Moral: the customer and the performer must communicate often and in a language understandable to each other.
How to deal with it: to explain to the client at the conclusion of the contract that during the first two months he will have to actively communicate, or select the person who will replace him from his company. If there is no such person, you need constant access to the site and full carte blanche for optimization. Otherwise, it is better not to enter into a contract with the client at all.
The third soundtrack. “I don’t sell anything”
The first part of Marlezonsky ballet.
One client expressed his dissatisfaction with the fact that, despite good traffic from search engines, there were practically no calls and requests from the site. An audit was conducted of its managers and an audit of processing applications from the site. As a result: managers handled calls extremely poor quality, applications through forms on sites were not processed by anyone. The client was recommended to train managers and to adjust the processing of applications from sites. Recommendations were ignored. The number of sales has not increased .
The second part of Marlezonsky ballet.
A month before the New Year, a client phoned the site dedicated to rest in the Moscow region asking him to advise him to rest in a cottage for a group of ten people. The manager accepting calls gave the client only two options for rest, and the client had to pull out all the additional information from the manager. The manager answered the questions extremely reluctantly and did not try to interest the client. As a result, the client did not buy anything.
Moral: it is not enough to bring the site to the top 10, it is necessary to restructure the structure of the customer’s company, sharpen it for accepting applications via the Internet. Even a site that is well represented in the search engines and visited by the target audience may not sell anything or sell little and rarely. There are many reasons for this, and one of the critical reasons is poor processing of requests from the site. If a manager is sitting “on the phone,” who is not able to clearly advise a person who has come from the site on a particular issue, then sales growth should not be expected. If requests by e-mail or via feedback forms are not processed or processed non-promptly, then there is no question of sales growth.
How to deal with this: conduct an audit of the client’s company on a “Mystery Shopping” system on a monthly basis, explain to the client on the day the contract is concluded how important such an audit is. Otherwise - think about the need to conclude a contract, no matter what monetary benefits he promised.
Soundtrack Fourth. "Yes, there just turned out the light"
The client has placed the site on the servers of the local provider. Twice a week, the provider turned off the electricity for several hours and the site was unavailable. As a result: the unstable position of the site in search engines.
Moral: hosting is a critical link in the success of optimization projects, since the site's normal indexation by search engines depends on the availability of the site. If the site is “hanging” for at least several hours, then the search engines may remove it from their databases and, as a result, the result will be zero or unstable.
How to deal with it: obviously - to place the site on a normal hosting.
Soundtrack fifth hit. "Bring me to the top 10 on request" air conditioners ", and everything will be fine with me"
A client came with an online store of air conditioners. In this store, he had about a thousand items of air conditioners, split systems and similar equipment. But the client wanted only one request “air conditioners” and only the top 10. For all the arguments that he has at least a couple of hundreds of requests (and in fact it turned out to be a couple of thousands), it is optimal not to advance by the abstract request “air conditioners”, but by more specific requests like “LG air conditioners to buy” (which cheaper, and more guarantees, and higher sales!), the client stubbornly responded in the style of "this is all nonsense, I want air conditioning." For a month and a half, we had a dialogue with him and tried to convince him. They made up the semantic core of the site, showed the requests that are in general, and the fact that they are a couple of thousand. Did not heed!
Moral: the strategy of moving along with low-frequency inquiries is often more effective than entering the top-10.
How to deal with this: write a book "Search Engine Optimization", create a customer-oriented corporate blog.
Soundtrack sixth. "Well, we changed something here."
The client removed from the site most pages that were promoted by priority requests. The project manager noticed the absence of pages in time, and after a few days they were all restored. As a result: loss of time and places for a number of requests (“Yandex” noticed the absence of pages earlier than the manager).
Moral: to achieve good results, all changes on the site must first be coordinated with the promotion specialists.
How to deal with this: to conduct regular monitoring of the site, in addition, make a list of pages that can not be changed and give it to the client. Generally, strongly ask for any change to consult a contractor.
Soundtrack seventh and last. "We are not to blame for anything"
However, any failure is not reduced to the standard set of client errors, it is always a system of errors. A professional is somehow different from a non-professional, who by the first signs understands what is going on and takes steps to correct the situation in advance.
In the failure of an SEO project, the contractor is always at fault . Many of our web colleagues probably will not agree with this thesis. Putting the blame on the client is easy. But it is not the “patient” who is to blame, but the “doctor” who failed to recognize the “disease” in time. The customer pays money not only for optimizing the site, but also for the SEO company to customize the workflow . At least, in most cases, the customer expects this, because he does not understand and is afraid of the specifics of the Internet business .
And because the task number one - do not run, headlong, to bring the customer site to the top. Task number one is to establish an effective interaction between the optimization firm and the client's firm. Probably, this is similar to the docking of two spacecraft. If you make a mistake at the very beginning, in the first 2-3 weeks of collaboration, then all this can turn into a catastrophe in the middle, when redocking is no longer possible.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/95716/
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